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Leopold Bloom King, the narrator, is the son of an amiable, loving father who teaches science at the local high school. His mother, an ex-nun, is the high school principal and a well-known Joyce scholar. After Leo's older brother commits suicide at the age of thirteen, the family struggles with the shattering effects of his death.

Punctuated by dogs and chooks and the daily tragicomedy of small town life, Bantam follows Mick and his mates as they court disaster and struggle to hold on in the roller-coaster ride of life on the dole.

"At age eleven, Julia Raine and her best friend Lois use a "magic eight ball" to channel the imaginary voice of Mrs. McCracken, a doll who gives advice on topics from romance to interior decoration. Magic Eight Ball follows Julia as she crosses into adulthood and life deals her one surprise after another. From childhood crushes to accidental motherhood to an unexpected love affair with a woman, Julia's story is told with charm, insight and abundant wit."--BOOK JACKET.

"In a summer that refuses to end, in the deceiving warmth of earliest October, civil war has come to Green Town, Illinois. It is the age-old conflict: the young against the elderly, for control of the clock that ticks their lives ever forward. The first cap-pistol shot heard 'round the town is dead accurate, felling an old man in his tracks, compelling town elder and school board despot Mr. Calvin C. Quartermain to marshal his graying forces and declare total war on the assassin, thirteen-year-old Douglas Spaulding, and his downy-cheeked cohorts.

Story of Holden Caufield with his idiosyncrasies, penetrating insight, confusion, sensitivity and negativism.